Ask HN: What are your go-to strategies to presale and/or validate your idea?

Reach out to potential customers on LinkedIn before writing a single line of code. Say you're a researcher, Founder, or author trying to learn more about __ (insert problem you're solving).

Are they available for a 20 minute call to chat about this problem?

If you need more time (60 minutes), offer to pay their hourly rate. No one has ever taken me up on this, but offering is a courtesy and shows you respect their time.

Don't try to sell anything on the first call. Just listen and let them do the talking. Try to understand if they make decisions about purchasing software, or if they'd need to convince someone else to buy this. Stack-rank a list of their current priorities and problems, and dig into how they're solving or working around the problem right now.

Write a personalized thank-you note and follow up on ANYTHING you can do to return the favor. Most businesses are struggling with some key hire, so my default is a warm email intro to someone else in my network.

The next call is for showing a rough prototype. Build a small demo if you're an engineer, or glue together a no-code solution if you're not. If you're solving a high value problem, even a rough version will seem like a godsend.

Check out Jason Cohen's talk about bootstrapping a business, where he covers choosing a market and validation: https://youtu.be/otbnC2zE2rw?si=jjjOXiDaUfZyKFVh

From a business perspective, I’d like to underscore the importance of genuinely understanding the problem through personal experience, subject expertise, or in-depth research, as that will allow you to have insights into potential solutions. Moreover, aligning your offering not just from a technical standpoint, but ensuring it has significant market value is crucial.

You really need to consider (IHO) that sometimes, even a well-engineered product may lack practical application or doesn’t quite hit the pain points in a way that customers are willing to pay for it. So, alongside validating the technical feasibility through prototyping, it’s equally pivotal to discern and articulate the tangible benefits customers will gain. This includes clear cost savings, revenue opportunities-improvements, or enhanced competitive edge, for which understanding the customers’ operations, challenges, and financial metrics become imperative.

Furthermore, utilizing strategies like the Value Proposition Canvas [0]can be a concrete way to map and validate the problem-solution fit and its monetizable value in the market, ensuring that your solution not only resolves the issue but also delivers financial or strategic gains to the customer.

I find it that successful products, always seem to focus on crafting a solution that’s not just technically apt but also commercially compelling for the end user, again my very subject view.

[0]https://www.strategyzer.com/library/the-value-proposition-ca...

To ensure proper product-market fit. It is crucial, for one, never to build in isolation and under a rock. From day one, if you want to build something for people you've got to live among them.

I did this while consulting for a motorbike luggage company a few years ago - new nothing of the culture so I bought my own little bike, joined forums on socials, went out for weekend rides with other riders. Chatted with different types of riders, asked them why they chose certain accessories, got a feel of what their motivations were when purchasing, what certain features they prioritized over others, and what pricing threshold they had. All while having a blast and not seemingly over-intrusive. With my feedback the company launched a line of panniers, and tank bags that had overwhelming success despite a high price point and heavy competition in the West.

1. I'd have phone/video calls with people who face the problem im solving, usually from my personal network / asking people on linkedin. In these calls I'd really try to learn about the problem and how they're solving it now. Possibly make presales on the phone at this point if the problem seems really intense and frequent. 2. Quickly build MVP 3. Send MVP to everyone I spoke with 4. observe whether it solves their problem

- build a demo and walk to your customers to see them use it in person (maybe in a wework location) - build a landing page for your product and launch paid ads on social media to see visitor's reaction - build a sales deck, pitch to your enterprise customers and ask for a letter of intent

the key is to find a way to learn how your target customers react to your product/solution

Read The Mom Test. To me it is the only essential book for high-tech entrepreneurs. It directly refutes much of the advice on this page and if I had had it available 15 years ago I would’ve saved $1.4 million of my own money.